Presently, food servers, such as containers for serving french fries in a fast food restaurant, are manufactured using a two stage process. The first stage of the process consists of several steps each of which is performed to a web of paper board in order to produce a stack of identical blanks therefrom. Shown in FIG. 1 is the typical blank 10 formed by the first stage of the process. To form the blanks from the web of paper board, the web is first unwound from a roll and sent to one or more printing stations where indicia such as a logo and an associated design is printed thereon. After the printing, the paper board is forwarded to a punch die-cutting station where the paper board is die cut, creased and perforated using a flat steel rule die to form several fold lines 12, 14 and 16 onto the paper board and to define a front panel 18, a back panel 20, glue flaps 22, bottom panels 24 and side panels 26 thereon. After being die cut, the die cut web, which has several blanks 10 nicked together, is forwarded through a rotary stripping station which automatically removes the die cut trim away from the die cut and creased paper board blanks. The nicked together, die cut blanks are then forwarded to a set of speed up rolls which break the nicks and then feed the separated blanks onto a slow down belt in a shingled fashion. The blanks are then manually removed from the shingle belt onto a pellet where they are stored awaiting the ensuing operation of folding, gluing and packing.
The punch press die cutting step requires that the paper board being cut and creased be of sufficient stiffness to allow for stopping the web in the punch press, die cutting the paper board with a minimum number of nicks and accelerating the cut web into the rotary stripper. The above-described first stage of the process will not work on light weight paper.
The second stage of the process consists of folding and gluing the glue flaps 22 of each blank 10. The folding and gluing is performed in a way that will only provide glue flaps 22 adhered to the outside surface 28 of the back panel 20. The process does not provide that the glue flaps 22 can be adhered to the inside surface of the back panel 20. The second stage of the process provides that a person folds the die cut blanks into a folder/gluer. The person selects a small stack of blanks 10 and hand folds the small stack along score line 12 so that the flat stack becomes an angled stack. This pre-bent stack is then placed into the feeder section of the folder/gluer where blanks 10 are fed off the bottom of the pre-bent stack and each blank 10 is first folded along fold line 12. Glue is applied to glue flaps 22, and then the blank 10 is folded with flat twisted belts along fold lines 14 which completes the folding. The paper board containers are then fed into a pressure belt system that sets the glue. After glue is applied to the glue flaps 22, food server 30 is formed, the rear 32 of which is shown in FIG. 2. As shown, the rear 32 of the food server 30 is defined by two side panels 26, a bottom panel 24, and two glue flaps 22 each of which is adhered to the outside surface 28 of the back panel 20. After gluing, the food servers 30 are ready for packing.
The above-described two stage process requires that a paper board having a high stiffness be used in order to achieve efficient high speed non-parallel fold lines (for example, fold lines 14). Additionally, the folder/gluer requires that a very stiff paper board be used (for example, 0.012 to 0.014 inches thick) in order to be able to feed a single blank at a time into the folder/gluer. Even if one were to adapt the abovedescribed two stage process to run lighter weight paper board, a significant cost savings would not be realized because paper board mills normally sell their paper board with calipers below twelve to thirteen for about the same price per square foot.
After the food server 30 is manufactured, the food server 30 is shipped to the food vendor, such as to a fast food restaurant. When food, such as french fries, is to be placed in the food server 30 and served by the food vendor, the sides 34 of the food server are urged toward each other to cause the bottom panels 24 to shift upward thereby locking the food server 24 into a position which provides an opening for the food. The glue flaps 22 essentially render the rear 32 of the food server 30 less practical for printing any attention-grabbing graphics thereon. Preferably, a folder carton (paper board) product is formed and glued with the glue flaps on the inside so that one can better use the full panel for graphics.
Because the first stage of the two stage process described above consists of stopping a moving web of paper board to perform certain steps (for example, punch die-cutting scrap therefrom), the first stage of the process severely limits the speed at which food servers can be produced. Additionally, the fact that one must hand fold small stacks of blanks prior to placing them in the folder/gluer infeed station adds substantial extra labor to the process.
Additionally, as mentioned, one of the steps performed to the web of paper board during the first stage of the above-described process includes punch die-cutting scrap from the paper board. Because the paper board is punch die-cut, it is imperative that a relatively heavy paper board, such as one hundred thirty pound paper board, be used so that the paper board does not jam during the punch die-cutting step. Of course, the heavier the paper board used, the higher the cost of producing a food server therefrom. Additionally, using heavier paper board is presently undesirable in light of recent worldwide efforts to conserve materials and limit the amount of material dumped into landfills.
Still further, as shown in FIG. 1, the blank 10 formed during the first stage of the above-described process includes four side panels 26 and two glue flaps 22 located adjacent the front panel 18. Therefore, to provide that scrap is kept to a minimum, the blanks must be "reverse nested" side-by-side on the web. In other words, the layout of the individual blanks on the web must be such that several blanks are aligned and staggered side-by-side on a single web rather than merely aligned front to back in a single file line. As a result of having to provide that the blanks are reverse nested, not only must the web of paper be relatively wide, but the gluing and folding steps of the process must be performed after the individual blanks are cut from the web, as a secondary operation, thus necessitating using the two stage process described above rather than utilizing a single stage process as is provided by the present invention.
The present invention provides a novel food server and a novel method of producing a food server, each directed to solve the problems discussed hereinabove.